In order to make the map for Story Mode I felt it was necessary to do a bit of a visual pass on the towns and vehicles, so that's what I've been up to recently. I've improved the house models and added more variation to them, I've added much more variation to the stores, restaurants and gas stations, and I've added strip malls! There is now color variation on most of the cars and town buildings, so it doesn't feel so much like you keep encountering the same white house and red pickup over and over again. I've also added utility poles, lamp posts, mail boxes and traffic signs to the road sides, so it looks more like a real cohesive place. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/34839262/5ce9d149a5335b2a04d1cce7c2241cb0fd76d874.jpg[/img] [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/34839262/183fd1a9a08cf115c85d15e996221e15d5a5a04c.jpg[/img] [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/34839262/f13d5b6d0f725c93fc1d5ffc24715cea9cf2dd47.jpg[/img] [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/34839262/1a680b6202d3689e221c43aca9e7c05bbdad207b.jpg[/img] [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/34839262/0f1f4d4eff80395c374069cfc3c284ea3b8effde.jpg[/img] [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/34839262/2b5e7ffd9c64f392437e2a612824d9beca4dda75.jpg[/img] [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/34839262/38efa375c182650420ec08bf38855fba7ef55fbd.jpg[/img] [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/34839262/349a152d7a610936faa8dc3088dad07db5e58d19.jpg[/img] Almost looks like a new game! I should mention that the size footprint of some of the houses has changed slightly with the new models, so if you had a fence adjoining them you might need to add an extra post. As a side note, I've tried to make them so they line up better so if you put a fence next to them, in most cases it should join on visually, except on the more elaborate fronts with balconies etc. I do recommend starting a new game with this patch so you'll generate a new map with all the new types of buildings and props in it. Gameplay-wise all this doesn't change much of course, but I've also added the ability to use those chunks of meat you can cut out of zombies to infect arrows and sharp melee weapons (dependent on medical skill). Which adds a whole new tactic to assassination missions. And there's few more tweaks and bug fixes, here's the full list:[list] [*] Visual pass on town buildings and vehicles, replaced house models with more detailed ones, added strip malls, randomly varying colors and signs, new gas station pumps and roofs, motel signs and ice boxes, utility poles, lamp posts and road signs [*] You can infect sharp melee weapons and arrows with zombie meat. Dependant on medical skill. [*] If someone set to be a chef is hungry, they will try to cook food rather than walking to other communities looking for it [*] Increased time between extortion squads, and made mercs have less armor and weapons when your presence is low [*] Fix for buildings in towns not being capturable if they are near another building that you already captured [*] Fix for getting stuck in fisticuffs state if you get into a war with the community of the person you were fighting [*] Fix for salad crafters who are set to auto deposit sealed containers getting stuck in a loop taking them in and out of chests [*] Fix for slowdown in mod where you can destroy graves with pipe bombs [*] Fix for memory leak that caused slowdowns, particularly after generating a new map [*] Updated French, Hungarian, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Ukrainian, Brazilian Portuguese and Lithuanian translations [/list] That's all in v183, which is in the publicbeta branch right now. The previous patch that was in publicbeta, [url=https://steamcommunity.com/games/1054510/announcements/detail/5361014317020970072]v182[/url], has now been moved to the main branch for everyone. Lastly - I mentioned earlier I was planning to raise the price soon. I'm intending do that next week, probably Friday the 26th of May (unless something happens to delay it), so fair warning if you were thinking about buying and want to do so at the current price - you've got a week! The new price will be $9.99 USD (that's ¥42, or €9,75, £8.50, according to Steam's pricing tool). There will of course continue to be sales pretty regularly. The reasons for this are: (1) people keep saying it's too cheap, (2) inflation, and (3) Sandbox mode has evolved enormously since launch and now feels like a full game in itself. But I will continue to make new additions and tweaks to Sandbox mode, as I work on Story mode, though. I'm also going to adjust the price of the original [url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/340050]Survivalist[/url] game in some currencies (but not USD), as it hasn't changed since launch and some of the recommended prices have gone wildly askew since then. [h3]What's this [b]publicbeta[/b] thing?[/h3] v183 will be in the "[b]publicbeta[/b]" branch for a while, before pushing it to the main game. If you want to try the latest features as they come out (and help test them!) it's a good idea to start using this branch. But keep in mind:[list][*] Because it's the bleeding edge it could be less stable [*] If you want to be able to play online co-op with someone you'll need to be on the same version as them [*] If you go back from the "[b]publicbeta[/b]" branch to the main branch you may not be able to load savegames created on "[b]publicbeta[/b]".[/list] To use [b]publicbeta[/b], just right-click on Survivalist: Invisible Strain in your Steam library and go to Properties, then Betas and in the drop-down select "publicbeta".